Best Olive Oil For Cooking

The Best Olive Oils, According to People Who Consume a Lot of It

Photo-Illustration: courtesy of EXAU

The olive-oil section at the grocery store can be overwhelming. You might wonder, Is this one better for cooking or finishing? Should I stick to Italian oils or try Californian, Greek, or Spanish? Is there such a thing as a good and cheap olive oil?

Experts will tell you buying olive oil (that is, extra-virgin olive oil) really comes down to personal preference. Try enough and you'll start to notice different flavor profiles — like piquant, peppery, mild, grassy, fiery — and which one you like best. Some are meant solely for cooking; they're milder and won't lose too much flavor when they interact with heat. Others are meant for drizzling on top of finished dishes; they taste best when served straight from the vessel. Many products on this list are good for both.

No matter what you choose, there are still a few easy ground rules to follow: Look for dark or opaque bottles because olive oil doesn't like light. (If you do find one you like in a clear bottle, be sure to store it in the cupboard instead of on the countertop.) Read the label to learn the country or countries of origin and the harvest date. And Richard Rea, the executive chef at the Butcher's Daughter, suggests looking for its certification from either the North American Olive Oil Association or its European counterpart, the International Olive Council.

People like to compare olive oil to wine, but there's one massive difference: "Olive oil does not benefit from age at all," says Nancy Harmon Jenkins, author of Virgin Territory: Exploring the World of Olive Oil. Olive oil lasts only about 18 months. If you're worried your oil has gone bad, food writer Kimberly Lord Stewart has an easy test: "Rancid oil smells like children's Play-Doh," she says, "or mouse urine." And on that note, here's what Jenkins, Stewart, and 15 other chefs, importers, experts, and food writers have to say about the best extra-virgin olive oils for any occasion.

California Olive Ranch Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Six of our EVOO experts mentioned this California Ranch olive oil as a go-to. Jenkins calls it a good beginner olive oil that is affordable, versatile, and available in three different flavors for everyday use. Stewart, author of Eating Between the Lines, uses California Olive Ranch often, noting the producers manage to maintain the quality of the oil while keeping the price fairly low. Anna Hezel, senior editor at Taste and author of Lasagna: A Baked Pasta Cookbook, calls it a "dependable, mild olive oil to add richness to a tomato sauce or to fry some eggs in." Danielle Oron, author of Food You Love But Different , likes it for roasting and grilling vegetables, broiling salmon, and making a quick vinaigrette. Oron says it's a great option when she doesn't "want the oil to overpower the flavor of the dressing." Matt Hyland, chef at Pizza Loves Emily in New York, thinks it's distinct and tasty enough to pass as a finishing oil. He uses it for everything at the restaurant and likes that it's "one of the only domestic brands you can buy in bulk." He says it works just as well in a vinaigrette as it does drizzled on top of a sizzling pie straight from the oven.

For an affordable oil that can add a nice drizzle on top of finished foods, Erin Shambura, chef and owner of Fausto in Brooklyn, says Olio Verde is a great choice with a mild flavor and less bitter notes. It's a single-origin Sicilian oil made with Nocellara del Belice olives. (Noce in Italian means walnut, so look out for a nutty flavor.)

After California, Georgia is one of the largest U.S. producers of olive oil. This EVOO from the Southern state comes recommended by both Joey Ward, the executive chef and owner of Atlanta's Southern Belle and Georgia Boy restaurants, and David Bancroft, the executive chef and partner of Acre restaurant in Auburn, Alabama. Ward recently visited the family-run farm where it's made and pressed some himself. He says it has a "very bright and peppery, robust flavor," and claims that "it goes toe to toe with the Italian, Greek, and California oil producers." Bancroft, the 2017 winner of Food Network's Iron Chef Showdown, told us it's his go-to at home and at work, saying he loves "the bright aromatics from Georgia-grown arbequina olives. The flavor has a subtle hint of green banana."

For daily use, Shambura recommends the medium-bodied Italian Monini olive oil. It has a fruity, grassy flavor and can be used for drizzling and for cooking meats, vegetables, and sauces, making it super-versatile.

To re-create the feeling of going out to eat at home, chef and Forked Spoon blogger Jessica Randhawa suggests picking up a bottle of this award-winning California olive oil, which is local to her neck of the woods. Randhawa says Cobram Estate's California Select is an amazing oil for both dipping and cooking. If you can get your hands on it, she recommends "their limited-edition California First Harvest," too, calling it "out-of-this-world tasty but also quite expensive at about $50." But "it sells out fast," she warns.

Oron loves this EVOO, which is cold pressed from Spanish Cornicabra olives, giving it a "rich and fruity flavor and the most beautiful color." Oron likes it so much she mostly uses it as a condiment for various snacks. She drizzles it on crudités and bowls of homemade hummus and likes dipping torn pieces of baguette into it to enjoy while cooking. Oron told us she uses Partanna EVOO for the same purpose when she can find it.

Produced in the Abruzzo region of Italy, the Agrumato Lemon olive oil is another favorite of Shambura's. As the name suggests, the oil has a lemony aroma. "It's a unique product because the olives and lemons are crushed simultaneously," she says. Drizzle this oil on cooked fish, white meat, crudos, and vegetables.

In June, Grammy-winning musician Angélique Kidjo told us she has been using this olive oil for at least 10 years, often buying a dozen bottles at a time. If that's not an endorsement, we don't know what is. "Every time I make a tomato-mozzarella salad — which is very, very often — I use this. The flavor is incredible," she says.

Underscoring what our experts said about how the quality of Tuscan olive oils is hard to beat, James Beard Award–winning chef Jonathan Waxman recommends this oil from the region's famous Frescobaldi estate. He says it's great for salads with seafood and vegetables. Though the color of the olive oil is not an indication of taste or quality, the bright-green liquid of Frescobaldi Laudemio is definitely eye-catching.

A great way to source olive oil is from wine producers, who make small-batch bottles on the side more often than you might think. "Typically, the top wine producers are overall incredible farmers," says Chris Leon, owner and wine director of Leon & Son in Brooklyn. "They live off the land and work with it organically and biodynamically. If you ever visit a vineyard, you can see the polyculture, the multiple things they have growing at all times." Jill Bernheimer, owner of Domaine L.A., agrees. "The same way you get a sense of terroir from a glass of wine, you do from olive oil," she says. Both experts have several producers they love — including Occhipinti and Giuseppe Quintarelli — but there are many more. Bottles tend to go in and out of stock, so just keep your eye out and you'll be sure to land on something.

According to Hezel, "Everyone in food media seems to be totally nuts for Brightland olive oil." The California company was started by Aishwarya Iyer, who left her venture-capital job to create better olive oil made sustainably in small batches using nothing but cold-pressed single-origin heirloom olives. Each glass bottle (the design of which was inspired by Matisse cutouts) is UV-powder coated to protect the precious contents and marked with a harvest date so you know it's fresh, something not all brands do. Plus it's sold at a handful of statusy retailers including Food52, Nordstrom, Goop, and Terrain. Choose from one of two flavors: Awake, which is grassier and best used in soups, pastas, or roasted veggies; or Alive, which has a nutty flavor and is great for salads, marinades, and baking.

"Don't laugh," Oron told us when she mentioned Kirkland Signature's olive oil as one of her favorites. "I go through a lot of EVOO." The company we like for its great basic white T-shirts is a surprisingly solid purveyor of USDA-certified organic olive oil, which is bottled in Italy with olives from Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

Sometimes you want an olive oil with strong flavors and a lot of personality. But other times, when cooking something with its own unique aromas, you want one that won't overpower the food. Jess Calvo of Brooklyn's Thai Farm Kitchen says he uses Bertolli Extra Light for dishes such as pad Thai, pad see ew, and drunken noodles. It's the only one on this list that doesn't qualify as extra-virgin olive oil, but according to him it is "healthy, very good for frying, and won't compromise the aromas of Thai food."

Italian olive oils are widely used around the world, and there are a lot of them, so we asked Beatrice Ughi, founder and president of high-quality Italian-food importer Gustiamo, for her recommendations. She picked Pianogrillo, which comes from the Ragusa province in Sicily, which is well known for the excellent quality of its oils. Compared to Tuscan olive oil, Sicilian EVOO tends to deliver a more forward flavor with bite and fewer notes of grassy voluptuousness. Nick and Sarah Suarez, owners of Gaskins restaurant in Germantown, are partial to Pianogrillo and to Gustiamo, who delivers it. "It's a workhorse that can be used for cooking, vinaigrettes, or as a finishing for salads or roasted vegetables," Nick says. "We used it for everything at Gaskins."

Alex Raij, the chef and owner of New York City Spanish restaurants El Quinto Pino, Txikito, and La Vara, specializes in cuisine from the Basque region. She prefers olive oils that are "grassy and neutral but not usually spicy" and recommends O-Med's 100 percent Arbequina olive oil with low acidity. When trying out different olive oils, many experts suggest tasting the raw oil, but Raij has a different approach. "The true test of olive oil is on food. Floating in a soup or on bread with a little bit of sea salt," she says.

Nuñez de Prado, which comes from the Andalusia region, is Waxman's recommendation for a Spanish oil. He uses this one for roasting meat as well as for marinades. Zabar's, which sells the olive oil in New York, describes it as "bright and fruity with just a hint of pepper and a smooth, sweet finish."

Similar to California Olive Ranch, this is an olive oil suited to pretty much everything. Hyland used to buy the 100 percent Arbequina variety and called it "drinkable." Unfortunately, that particular one has disappeared from the internet (and stores, too, as far as Hyland has found), but this blend should also be super-tasty and versatile. "I'd use it to finish pasta swirled in a pan and to toss over carrots once they've been roasted," he says. "I also like to poach garlic in canola oil and then transfer the cloves to this olive oil. … That way, the higher-quality stuff doesn't interact with heat, and you get two versions of delicious, aromatic garlic oil."

Greek oils don't get as much attention as Italian or Spanish ones, but Howard says this is one of her favorite oils to use while cooking. At $18, it's cheap enough to cook with, but it tastes good enough to drizzle on as a finishing oil, she says. It's pressed within three hours of harvest and, mos important, features the harvest date on the label. Hyland uses the organic variety regularly at home, mostly for finishing. "It's super-grassy," he says, "like eating lawn clippings, which is honestly what I really like in olive oil. If green were a flavor, I would say it tastes green."

Jacob Sessoms, the executive chef at Cultura in Asheville, North Carolina, prepurchases 50 gallons of this olive oil for his restaurant. He likes that the oil is a family affair: It's produced by Spiro Theros, a friend of his, and Spiro's son, Nikos. The father-son duo live in Asheville but make regular trips to Greece to press, package, and ship the oil from their family's plot.

It took only one taste of this oil (the Australian counterpart to the Cobram Estate California varietal listed above) for Hyland to become a fan. It's well priced and well rounded, and he likes the idea of more olive oils being imported from Australia. "As many people move beyond the generic grocery-store-branded stuff, it's nice to see different varieties coming out of different places," he says. Australia makes great wine, which "means they have the terrain to make great olive oil."

It's not uncommon for wineries to get into the olive-oil business, and Miraval in Provence (which you might know as the winery bought by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who still own it even after their separation) makes a beautiful bottle. Howard, who recently gifted a bottle to friends, says it's delicious enough that you can make a whole meal with just a bowl of this oil and some good bread.

According to chefs Elise Kornack and Anna Hieronimus, who ran the Michelin-star restaurant Take Root, husband-and-wife team Giuseppe Morisani and Skyler Mapes (from Calabria and California, respectively) have made their business out of deeply loving what they do. Their product is great, and they are transparent about how it gets made, a bonus in a market where that is not usually the case. "They're producing olive oil with their interest and knowledge in nutrition, winemaking, and design," Kornack and Hieronimus say.

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